Bergerlary
The Opinion Journal takes a look at the report issued by the House Government Reform Committee on the theft of classified documents from the National Archives by Sandy "Socks" Berger. It is not a flattering report for either Berger of the Justice Department that failed to go after this criminal action with sufficient vigor. Berger should have been jailed for what he did but got away with a slap on the wrist.
The more we learn about Sandy Berger's brilliant career as a document thief, the clearer it becomes that there is plenty we still don't know and may never learn. On Tuesday, the House Government Reform Committee released its report on Mr. Berger's pilfering of classified documents from the National Archives.
The committee's 60-page report makes it clear that Mr. Berger knew exactly what he was doing and knew that what he was doing was wrong. According to interviews with National Archives staff, Mr. Berger repeatedly arranged to be left alone with highly classified documents by feigning the need to make personal phone calls, and he used those moments alone with the files to stuff them in his pockets and briefcase.
One incident is particularly suggestive. By his fourth and final visit to review documents and prepare for testimony before the 9/11 Commission, the Archives staff had grown suspicious of how Mr. Berger was handling the documents, so they numbered each one he was given in pencil on the back of the document. When one of them–No. 217–was apparently removed from the files by Mr. Berger, the staff reprinted a copy and replaced it for his review. According to the report, Mr. Berger then proceeded to slip the second copy "under his portfolio also." In other words, he stole the same document twice.
There's more, of course. Nobody knows how many uncatalogued documents he might have removed - we likely never will, either. But the Justice Department did not try to find out, either. The Opinion Journal points out that there is no evidence Berger did remove any uncatalogued material. There is also no evidence that he did not. Given that he was willing to try to steal documents twice to try to suppress them, it is not a safe assumption to make that he did not remove some other things. The Justice Department did the US no favors here.
By Quilly Mammoth, Saturday, 13 January , 2007 @ 10:42 am
And Beger becomes eligable for a Security clearance again just in time for President Rodham’s administration. Isn’t that neat??
By daveinboca, Sunday, 14 January , 2007 @ 12:05 am
Berger is another poster-boy for the Democrats’ inability to own up to allowing 9/11 to develop—mainly due to Bill and Hillarys’ legal backgrounds that considered capturing Bin Laden and extradicting him from Sudan in ‘96 a “legal” problem.